Jeff Buckley: You And I

Jeff Buckley drowned 20 years ago on Monday; deep in debt to his record company.Source:Supplied

TWENTY years ago on Monday, Jeff Buckley took a fatal swim in a murky Mississippi River outside of Memphis, Tennessee.

Since then Buckley has transformed into a legend with a mysterious legacy — in death finding the global success and acclaim he never managed to achieve during his life.

Buckley died aged 30, three years after his debut album Grace, the only album released while he was alive. Since his drowning there have been nine posthumous releases — live albums, compilations and Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk, the early versions of what would have been his second album, which he was working on in Memphis at the time of his death.

It turns out Buckley Inc may have had other motivations other than honouring his immense talent as a highly influential singer, songwriter and guitarist.

Buckley died with over a million dollars in debt to his record label Columbia.

Australian author Jeff Apter, who was working in Memphis when Buckley died, has written extensively about the singer in the new book A Pure Drop: the Life and Legacy of Jeff Buckley.

Grace had only really connected on any commercial level in Australia (where ABC’S Triple J and Melbourne’s independent Triple R championed it), France and the UK.

Jeff Buckley liked to live life to the fullest, even if it meant swimming in his bootsSource:News Corp Australia

Buckley signed with major label Columbia, inspired by his heroes Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen who had also recorded for the company.

Indeed Buckley’s most popular song would be a cover of Cohen’s Hallelujah.

“He was a perfectionist,” Apter said. “It took him so long to make Grace, and it cost so much because why do one take when you can do 30?”

However Buckley soon learned the perils of signing to a major record company.

“It’s career in rock and roll 101,” Apter explains. “The risks that come with signing with a major label and also the benefits. Jeff wanted to be known but he didn’t want to have to go through the complications of being on a major label, that is, having to suck it up. He learnt by his own mistakes that was necessary. He had a real conflict — he’d seen what his father (musician Tim Buckley, who died of an overdose aged 28 in 1975) had gone through when he was on a major label in the 60s and 70s. But Jeff wanted that exposure. But it wasn’t exactly what he thought it would be.”

After touring Grace (including two visits to Australia, 1995 and 1996) Buckley left his adopted home of New York and moved to Memphis.

He’d road test new songs at tiny clubs, enjoying being an unknown artist away from the profile he had in New York.

Yet when he went to buy a house in Memphis, for just $40,000, Buckley realised just how in debt he was.

“The house was a real doer-upper,” Apter said.

But there was no money in the bank, he couldn’t even buy a car. Jeff signed both his publishing and recording deals with Columbia. They call it cross collateralising, it’s like having two mortgages. He took a chunky publishing advance, I heard it was as much as a million dollars but I think he only got about $100k in the hand. Grace alone cost close to seven figures to make.

Police divers for Shelby County Sheriff's Office searching for the body of Jeff Buckley on May 30, 1997.Source:AP

“When he died those two debts were offset against each other. His mother (Mary Guibert) probably thought there must be some money, he’d toured for years and had great reviews, but he was in significant, seven figure debt at his death. Which partly explains all these posthumous releases. She must have been trying to clear off that debt and finally make some money out of his legacy. There’s pros and cons with signing with a major label. If he’d hung around he might have cleared all that debt and become a millionaire and become famous and really well respected. He only really got one of those three before he died.”

Buckley was so dissatisfied with the early version of his second album friends said he was planning on a ceremonial burning of the tapes in Memphis before starting again from scratch.

The singer had also started making phone calls to friends who hadn’t heard from him in a long time during his final weeks on earth.

“I’m just speculating but there’s that thing in AA, taking inventory, reaching out to the people you may have messed over in one way,” Apter suggests. “That could have been part of it. It’s hard, the guy is dead, the people around him don’t reveal too much. I got the impression he was trying to get his house in order, not because he was going to take his own life, but he knew he’d burned some people over the years and wanted to make good with them.

“Gary Lucas was one of them. He introduced Jeff to the New York music scene, gave him the lead to Columbia where he got signed, he co-write two of Grace’s biggest songs. Once Jeff got going Gary got shelved and his career took a downturn, although he’s rebuilt it now. But he’d reached out to Gary just before he died to write some songs again. It suggests he had some inkling that maybe he wouldn’t be around too long, but he was definitely trying to get his life together in Memphis.”

Jeff Buckley’s father Tim Buckley.Source:Supplied

Jeff Buckley’s mother Mary Guibert.Source:Supplied

It wasn’t to be. On the night of May 29, 1997, Buckley went swimming in Wolf River Harbour, a slack water channel of the Mississippi River.

He was fully dressed (including Doc Martens) and was singing Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, as heard by friend and roadie Keith Foti who was with him.

Apter said it is not your typical swimming spot.

“I remember looking at it and thinking ‘You do not go swimming in there’. It looked like the world’s biggest swamp. It’s different bodies of water merging into one, there’s a lot of traffic, tankers and tugs, it’s a working harbour. It’d be like swimming at Port Melbourne or Port Botany. It’s just not a place you’d want to go for a swim. Why did he do it? Sun was shining, probably felt a bit hot. From researching him for the book I found out risk taking was part of his nature, he burnt the candle at both ends, anywhere he could get a light. He lived pretty fast.”

Apter said no one he spoke to from Buckley’s inner-sanctum believed it was a suicide — the police report and a medical examiner’s report all said it was an accidental drowning, with no traces of alcohol or drugs. His body was spotted and located on June 4.

Jeff Buckley made two visits to Australia in two years: Picture: Jennifer StuteSource:News Corp Australia

“The guy just made a big mistake — put some Led Zep on I’m going to go for a swim, I’ve got my Doc Martens on, what a great idea. He’d actually gone swimming on the Gold Coast with his girlfriend Joan (Wasser) the year before he died. His tour manager John Pope said to me everyone talks about him dying in the river in Memphis but we had to go and pluck him out of the surf. It’s not suicidal, it’s recklessness. That’s how he lived his live from what I could tell. He might have slowed down in his 30s if he made it.”

Buckley had a reputation as a lover man, DNA from his body was kept in case of future paternity cases.

“He liked the ladies, the ladies liked him. When people’s stars begin to rise there’s a lot of people attracted to them, like moths to a flame, Jeff was like that. At one of his memorial services all these crying women going ‘Oh, you too?’ He had relationships with a lot of ladies over a short period of time. Not just sexual, but close personal friendships. Some didn’t know each other. He squeezed a lot into 30 years and specifically into the last five or six years of his life. Once he got to New York for the tribute to his father, which is where his career started, it was non stop until the time of his death.”

Grace has now sold a million copies, while Buckley’s music has been discovered by new generations — Guibert controls his estate and legacy.

Ironically Chris Cornell, who died on May 17, was one of Buckley’s heroes and was recruited by Guibert to help finish Buckley’s second album.

“Jeff used to sing (Soundgarden’s) Black Hole Sun,” Apter said. “Then he hired Soundgarden’s sound engineer and said ‘I want the same speakers you build for Chris Cornell’. Cornell got involved after Jeff died in helping put together Sketches. In 2011 Cornell started turning up on stage to do solo shows with his red phone on a stool next to him. People would shout out what’s the phone for, one day he came clear and said Jeff’s mum gave it to him, Jeff owned that phone and he put it on stage hoping Jeff might call one night. There were a lot of connections. When you think about the best voices from that era it was Jeff Buckley and Chris Cornell.”

Apter, who staged a Buckley tribute concert with Gary Lucas in 2015, said Buckley joined a club of gone-too-soon rock icons.

“Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley are two great examples of these beautiful looking men who wrote these emotionally rich songs and really evocative music who died young. Jimi Hendrix another example, Kurt Cobain too. You can only envisage them as young men. That has a very romantic, darkly romantic quality. Kurt Cobain, to a certain degree. As awful as that was for their families it creates a myth. Jeff Buckley will always be frozen in time.”

Singer Jeff Buckley performing at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney on February 15, 1996.Source:News Limited